MINNEAPOLIS, MN.-The Minneapolis Institute of Arts celebrates Bastille Day with the opening of a glorious period room from eighteenth-century France. Returned to its original splendor, the Grand Salon from the Hôtel Gaillard de la Bouëxière, in Paris, officially debuted on July 14 as the Institute’s fifteenth period room. Resplendent with gilded paneling and sumptuous carving, the Grand Salon (c. 1735) has been returned to the formal reception space it once was in the private residence of Jean Gaillard de la Bouëxière (1676–1759), who held influential positions under the reign of Louis XV. Through generous support from The Groves Foundation and Carolyn and Franklin Groves, the Institute is presenting one of the most authentic French period room installations in an American museum.

The Institute acquired the Grand Salon in 1983 and began the process of researching its history, and organizing its conservation, restoration, and installation in the museum. Since then, more than a dozen workshops and restoration firms in the United States and France, in addition to the Institute’s staff, have contributed their skill, knowledge, and passion toward this project. The most concentrated conservation and restoration work has occurred during the past three years. Les Ateliers de la Chapelle in Le Longeron, France, and Les Ateliers Gohard, in Paris, conserved and, where necessary, restored the salon’s woodwork, gilding, and painting, using traditional French techniques. The Upper Midwest Conservation Association (UMCA) performed the challenging task of re-sculpting the plaster reliefs of the cornice and ceiling medallion.

The Grand Salon is decorated with gilded carvings in the Régence and rococo styles, which were popular in France during the 1730s. An elaborate cornice presents an arcadian fantasy of putti playing musical instruments and celebrating the pleasures of life; meanwhile, monkeys dance about and taunt birds. Two curved wooden panels are mounted with exquisitely carved trophies. One trophy devoted to theater and music flanks another dedicated to hunting. On either side of the trophies are medallions with allegorical portraits of four continents: Africa, America, Europe, and Asia. Below these medallions are arches, decorated with palms, which frame depictions of animals and birds that are most likely based on characters from the fables of Jean de la Fontaine (1621–1695). Other panels illustrate the story of the god Apollo, who is accompanied by the gods and muses from Mount Parnassus, including Mercury and Diana.

The Grand Salon was part of the remodel and expansion of the seventeenth-century building that Gaillard purchased in 1731. Located near the Place Vendôme, at the corner of Rue Nueve des Petits Champs and Rue d’Antin, the mansion was symbolic of Gaillard’s accumulation of wealth and power that he gained through his elite position as a tax collector for the royal crown.

After numerous changes in ownership following Gaillard’s death in 1759, Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co., art and architecture dealers in Paris, sold several rooms from the residence in the late 1920s. This included a study, which was bought for The Saint Louis Art Museum and remains on view there today. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the Grand Salon, but never installed it. Stored in crates since that time, the Grand Salon is one of fifteen period rooms in the permanent collection of The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

The Grand Salon from the Hôtel Gaillard de la Bouëxière A Gift of Carolyn and Franklin Groves and The Groves Foundation.